The struggle between the Chinese government and the banned Falun Gong (FLG) sect may seem far removed from the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai. Yet it continues to be waged in the residential areas away from the downtown shopping malls and high-rise office blocks. Every city district has been holding meetings to convince ordinary citizens that the FLG is an "evil cult" and that the attempted suicides in Tiananmen Square last month are the final proof. In at least one district, the meeting was designed for the "family members" of FLG adherents - an indication that they still exist in sufficient numbers to be taken seriously. A mobile library has been cruising around local housing estates with a display of "anti-heresy" books. After a year and a half, the crackdown ordered personally by President Jiang Zemin still seems far from succeeding.

The outside world is still a long way from forming a balanced view of this movement. The task has been immensely complicated by Beijing's punitive reaction, which violates the ordinary human rights of thousands of Chinese. We do not have to believe every report of deaths and torture in prisons: the rough handling of FLG protesters in Tiananmen Square gives a good guide to the authorities' ruthlessness.

Yet while the sight of rank and file FLG members quietly risking their lives is impressive, it also raises questions about why they are doing so. These have been sharpened by the suicide attempt, in which one of the group actually died. (While FLG spokespeople insist that the incident was a frame-up, it is extremely hard to see how this could have been staged.) The most serious questions concern the role of the movement's master, Li Hongzhi, and the pronouncements he has issued from the safety of his US exile.

Some analysts point to the increasingly apocalyptic tone of the master's messages, which may have encouraged his followers to go to such extreme lengths. For several years he has talked in vague terms about a coming "catastrophe" which will eliminate the "bad people" while allowing those who have followed his path to achieve salvation. Last year Mr Li went further, claiming that a dire prophecy by the 16th century French soothsayer Nostradamus referred to the current situation in China. He said that a reference in the prophecy to the Roman god Mars really indicated Marx -- or the Chinese Communist party.

In several messages last autumn, Mr Li denounced those of his followers who were forced to recant their faith, saying that they were serving the evil purposes of the regime. There seems no doubt that many practitioners headed for Tiananmen Square to face the regime's wrath, believing this was what the master required them to do.

This was made very clear in an article, supposedly written by an anonymous practitioner, which the FLG circulated in December. The writer urged his fellow practitioners "not to cover up yourself with excuses anymore. Teacher (the master) and yourself know your thoughts the best. The only thing left is whether or not you are willing to step forward and/or are capable of doing so."

In a New Year's Day message, Mr Li carried his exhortation a stage further, arguing that "forbearance" had its limits when faced with evil. "If the evil has already reached the point where it is unsaveable and unkeepable, then various measures at different levels can be used to stop it and eradicate it." Although vaguely worded, the message appears to have been interpreted by some followers as an instruction to abandon non-violence. Ten days later another message was posted to correct the misunderstanding.

Falun Gong spokespeople have stressed that Mr Li continues to preach non-violence and that suicide is specifically excluded. But they also offer conflicting interpretations of his new year message: in one version, he was simply saying it was time "to step forward and inform the public of the truth". In another interpretation, he was predicting that the "evil forces" opposed to the FLG would meet disaster by supernatural means.

Some experts who have studied the FLG closely feel that the net effect of Mr Li's exhortations has been to ratchet up the psychological pressure on his supporters to take extreme measures, including the suicide attempts.

Other observers reject this view, arguing that FLG statements have also urged moderation. One from the master in August explicitly told followers that getting themselves jailed was not the only way of achieving merit, reportedly prompting some adherents to avoid active protest.

At the very least the master has caused considerable confusion among his followers, in circumstances that for them (but not for him) may mean the difference between life and death.

Sharper questions are also being asked about the master's past, his spiritual claims, his sources of income, and his motives for taking on the Chinese government. Although some of these were raised when he first emerged into the limelight, attention since then has focused understandably upon Beijing's savage treatment of his followers. Most western media have refrained from describing the Falun Gong as a cult, perhaps partly because the word was appropriated by Beijing.

One of the few analysts to take a more critical look, the well-known Chinese intellectual Dai Qing, made a prescient forecast last year in a postscript to a speech she had given at Harvard.

"As long as the Communist party unreasonably insists that it is the only organisation to be respected, and FLG followers blindly worship and unconditionally follow their master", she wrote, "many frightful scenarios can still occur."

Ms Dai describes Mr Li as "capable yet immoral, ambitious yet irresponsible". She points out the obvious fact that until April 1999, when Mr Li arranged a provocative demonstration in Beijing (and immediately left the country for the US), his followers were left alone to practise their beliefs.

Ms Dai concludes that the unequal struggle between the FLG and Beijing has become the largest conflict in China's transition towards modernity - and that the behaviour of both sides is still rooted in the past.